abundantly for the races who must often talk when they do not feel like
thinking, and he gave a start when Don Ippolito replied in English,
"Yes, but hope deferred maketh the heart sick."

It was not that it was so uncommon to have Italians innocently come out
with their whole slender stock of English to him, for the sake of
practice, as they told him; but there were peculiarities in Don
Ippolito's accent for which he could not account. "What," he exclaimed,
"do you know English?"

"I have studied it a little, by my myself," answered Don Ippolito,
pleased to have his English recognized, and then lapsing into the
safety of Italian, he added, "And I had also the help of an English
ecclesiastic who sojourned some months in Venice, last year, for his
health, and who used to read with me and teach me the pronunciation. He
was from Dublin, this ecclesiastic."

"Oh!" said Mr. Ferris, with relief, "I see;" and he perceived that what
had puzzled him in Don Ippolito's English was a fine brogue
superimposed upon his Italian accent.

"For some time I have had this idea of going to America, and I thought
that the first thing to do was to equip myself with the language."

"Um!" said Mr. Ferris, "that was practical, at any rate," and he mused
awhile. By and by he continued, more kindly than he had yet spoken, "I
wish I could ask you to sit down again: but I have an engagement which
I must make haste to keep. Are you going out through the campo? Pray
wait a minute, and I will walk with you."